Massive Mistakes of the Drunken Variety
by OkThat'sCool
Summary: "Of all the people I could have had sex with. You! We had sex?"  Will shrugged again, rubbing his eyes sleepily and flattening out his dark, curly bed-head. "I find your reaction mildly offensive."  Liz and Will make a drunken, Mardi Gras mistake.


_Oops. Plot bunny. I promise this will just be a one-shot and then I'll get back to my regularly scheduled fanfics._

_Happy Mardi Gras, everybody!_

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><p>Massive Mistakes of the Drunken Variety<p>

Or

Shit, Shit. Fuck. Shit, Shit.

Liz Bennet had already had two Bloody Marys, two Red Bulls and Vodka, three Abita Ambers, and a rather awful shot of tequila by the time she got to the parade.

She had waddled along the three-mile walk to their spot, slowed only by inauspicious waves of hatred for a one, William Darcy, and her sister, Jane, for inviting him along ("But Jaaaaane! He _can't _come! I _hate_ him!" "Shut up, Liz! He's standing right next to you!").

But really she couldn't stay angry long, too excited was she for the evening's festivities. She was driven on by her love for beads and her even greater passion for "shit that lights up." Or at least that's what she kept muttering about as Jane led her drunk-ass along the sidewalk to the parade route.

Upon arriving at the route, they each paid one dollar to pee in the most disgusting porta-potty of all time, shared squirts from Charlotte Lucas' hand sanitizer that she rather thoughtfully brought along with her, and found a lovely spot on the curb where Liz immediately sat down and took a quick power nap on Rick Fitzwilliam's shoulder.

But by the time the parade rolled around, Liz was back up, a daiquiri in hand, screaming her face off for whatever useless crap someone was willing to throw her. She caught a glowing sword and 33 beads, visited the portalets again, and "accidentally" smacked William Darcy in the face with a pair of beads.

And that was the absolute last thing Liz remembered of her Sunday.

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><p>"Fuck."<p>

Liz came to consciousness like being sprung out of a slingshot, her entire being snapping back into place, realigning her brain and her body—which had been out of sync for a rather long period of time. Her eyes nearly bled, so disrupted were they by the blinding light streaming through the windows and the awful hazy sensation she felt from sleeping in her contacts.

She tried very hard to look around, but still the world refused to focus and her contacts refused to stop torturing her eyeballs. That was until someone beside her groaned.

Like a wave crashing over her head, Liz was gripped with complete and utter panic. She struggled desperately to regain her vision and, at long last, managed to make out a few substantial images just in time to see her loathed enemy, a one Will Darcy, roll over in bed beside her.

Oh. Fuck.

"Darcy!" she shouted before she could stop herself.

His eyebrows knit together in confusion. Not so much confused by her presence, but rather more by her blatant shock. "Um. 'Lizabeth?"

Liz looked down quickly. Yep. She was naked. Why did bad things always have to happen to her? "You? I slept with _you!_ Why would I sleep with you?"

Will shrugged and sat up, his plain white sheets ("He would have plain white sheets, Jane. Must he be boring in every regard?") slipping down his chest. As far as chests went, it was a very nice one. Very manly and… pectoral-y.

"But you! Really _you_?" Liz's shock continued to resonate. "Of all the people I could have had sex with. You! We had sex?"

Will shrugged again, rubbing his eyes sleepily and flattening out his dark, curly bed-head. "I find your reaction mildly offensive."

"Why couldn't I have had sex with Richard instead? Hell, even Charlotte would have been a preferable option!" Liz began to wail dramatically.

"Now I'm a bit more than 'mildly offended'." Will was scowling.

"But really. You! And me! It's just ridiculous. Tell me it's ridiculous, Will."

Will rolled out of bed, allowing her a view of all the goods at the candy shop (and what fine goods they were!) before he could find a pair of boxers in his bedroom and slip them on. He looked back at Liz, still sitting there in his bed, clasping his sheets to her chest and trying to register her shock. Was that a trace of sadness—disappointment?—on his face, or was she crazy. "I can tell you it every way you'd like, 'Lizabeth. That doesn't mean it didn't happen."

"But I hate you!" she shouted, before she could stop herself. Not that she would have tried. But Will's hurt scowl made her wish instantly—just instantly—that she could backtrack and take that one back. "I was drunk! It doesn't count."

Will shrugged one final time and fluffed his bed-head into an even worse knot of adorable tangles. "Those facts are mutual, 'Lizabeth. I too hate you and was drunk." He looked back at her, sitting there, barely concealed, her dark, long curls even messier than his own, her eyes shining with exhaustion, her lips swollen from his, and cheeks crimson with embarrassment. And with that he made his first honest confession to her ever: "But that doesn't mean I regret it."

And before she could process all the infinite varieties of meaning that one sentence could hold, he grabbed a shirt and stepped out of the room allowing her to dress and sneak out the door without any further injury to her dignity (if any dignity remained to be damaged).

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><p>When Liz stepped into her house, the entire building was wailing with the rage of an angry blender. She wandered her way into the kitchen, to find her roommate Charlotte standing on a 24 pack of Coors Light mixing something in the blender that was an electric shade of lime. Jane, on the other hand, was sprawled across the opposite counter, sleeping rather deeply with her feet in the sink and her arms hanging off the counter.<p>

"Charlotte! Charlotte!" Liz screamed, trying to be heard over the racket, her fingers tucked into her ears.

Upon noticing Liz's entrance, Charlotte took her finger off the "Blend" button. She grabbed the pitcher from its base and threw her hands happily into the air. "We're making Margaritas!" she announced with a musical quality.

Liz almost immediately turned a sick shade of puce and fell into the nearest kitchen chair. "Please. Never again."

Charlotte giggled and poured a helping into a discarded cup from the counter. She held it before Liz, running it under her nose. "This will cure you right up!"

Liz took the cup, held her nose, and took a sip trying not to gag. The best cure for a hangover was always more alcohol, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

Charlotte grabbed another cup, this time from the floor, and joined Liz at the table, sipping her Margarita with zeal. "Soo…." She grinned and wiggled her eyebrows, trying desperately to get the lip of the cup in her mouth. "How was your night with good ole Willy and his good ole willy?" She giggled to herself at her own comment.

Liz slammed her cup on the table and glared daggers at Charlotte. "You _let_ me go home with him!"

Charlotte tried to get her icy cocktail out of the bottom of the cup, holding it nearly entirely upside-down over her mouth and tapping the bottom until a large chunk came out and landed directly on her face. She wiped it on her shirt and giggled some more. "I didn't _let_ you go home with him. That was all _your _idea and you two were both pretty gung-ho about it."

"I feel so taken advantage of," she growled into her cup, forcing herself to swallow more.

Charlotte snorted. "I think it was you who did the advantage taking, my baby."

Liz frowned, but before she could say anything else Jane came awake with a jolt.

"Wha—" Jane looked around blearily. "Why am I in the kitchen?"

Liz just shrugged, but Charlotte giggled some more and answered, "You said you preferred sleeping on hard surfaces."

Jane wiped her eyes and frowned. "What, am I retarded?"

The other two girls immediately nodded yes.

"And where's Charlie?" Jane asked looking around for her boyfriend.

"He's in your room. Probably still dry humping your pillows," Charlotte replied casually.

Jane grinned. "Well as long as he's not lonely." She hopped down off the counter with a grimace and joined the other two girls at the table—Charlotte still happily trying to get to her drink, and Liz falling quickly into a pit of despair.

"So I propositioned him?" Liz finally burst out when she thought she couldn't take it anymore.

"Yup," Charlotte giggled.

"Who? Will?" Jane asked. "Actually first you confessed you had 'repressed feelings' for him. Then you guys disappeared together rather quickly."

"I did not say that!"

"Actually you did," Charlotte contradicted.

"Those exact words, even," Jane confirmed. "He seemed pretty happy about it."

"And why did no one stop me?" Liz almost shouted back at them. "Did no one notice I was blackout!"

"Of course we did," Jane replied evenly, stealing Liz's cup and making her way into the margarita.

"But you just kept screaming at us over and over again that you weren't." Charlotte shrugged. "So eventually we just let you two have at it."

"Well great. Thanks," Liz muttered sarcastically, falling back into her chair with a pout.

Charlotte shrugged again and began to scoop her margarita from the cup with her hand. "You seemed to be enjoying yourself. Both of you. Who were we to stop 'star-crossed lovers'?"

Jane looked up from Liz's cup and grinned. "You said that one too."

"I hate you all."

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><p>Come Fat Tuesday, things were still where they were with the girls: Charlotte was still drunk, Jane was still napping in inconvenient locations, and Liz was still mulling over her late night excursion with William Darcy. Thus far her feelings had transitioned from shock, to repulsion, to mild fascination, to confusion, and finally to acceptance. Yes, she'd grown accustomed to her drunken mistake, but when he, Rich and Charlie showed up at the girls' house on Mardi Gras morning, bright and early ready to make their way to the morning's parades, Liz didn't quite know how to feel.<p>

He looked, well, he looked really fucking good, but that wasn't a recent development. Will had always been Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome. The recent development was the air of misery that seemed to envelope him.

Liz, as the most sober of the three (having reached her drinking maximum early in the marathon that is Carnival), answered the door for all three boys that early morning with an equally noxious air of despair. The entire house was wailing with the roar of the blender once again and before Liz could do more than register Will's presence on her doorstep, the blender stopped and Jane and Charlotte shouted at an ungodly volume, "Tequila!"

It wasn't much later that they exited the house to make their long hike across town, rolling cooler packed and ready, disgustingly strong drinks in each member of the group's hands. They made their walk happily, turning every possibility into an excuse to drink, and before either could wallow in their misery for too long, both Will and Liz had settled into a fine, little, drunken buzz.

The group found a fine spot along the streetcar tracks and set up camp for the long day of partying that would conclude the long week of partying. Jane fell asleep in a stranger's chair—who didn't seem to mind since she slept like an angel. Charlie, Rich and Charlotte began a drinking game called "It's Sunny, Drink/It's Cloudy, Drink!" This left Will and Liz, somehow, awkwardly sitting beside each other on the curb discussing their prospects for catching coconuts this year.

"But I sure could use the luck, so catching one would be—"

"Do you really?" Liz interrupted, finally allowing her thought bubbles to burst and manifest actual words.

He ruffled that fine dark hair and frowned in confusion. "Do I what?"

Liz blushed, once again, bright crimson and had a flashbulb memory from a moment she hadn't quite allowed herself to remember—Will kissing softly down her neck, across her chest and delicately finding her bare nipple with his mouth. She burned with the fear that he could read her mind right that moment, and the rush of things that she could suddenly remember. His eyes seemed to look right through her.

She met his eye contact dead-on, propelled by a sudden lust (or at least a sudden admittance of lust) that sprang her entire body into life. "Do you really not regret it."

Will held her eyes. She still felt as if he could read her every thought. He took a long drag on his beer, eye contact still unbroken. She felt almost as if she were back in that vivid memory of him slipping inside of her, their faces pressed closely together, lips lingering so closely together as their bodies found a natural rhythm.

"No—"

"It's sunny! Drink!" Charlotte yelled and they all—Liz and Will included—took long sips.

The spell between them was miraculously still unbroken, but Liz had cast her eyes to the ground. "I don't regret it," Will continued, placing his hand softly under her chin and lightly tapping it, signaling for her to look at him again.

"I thought you hated me," she said softly, obliging his request and feeling another flashbulb memory rake through her body—her lifting her hips so he could slowly slip her underwear over her hips, down her legs and off her ankles with a dimpled grin and a few delirious giggles.

"That was _you_ that hated _me_," he pointed out, permitting a quirky grin, not too unlike the one from her memory.

"You insulted me." She looked at him pointedly, that lingering hurt coming out, one eye watching him closely with her eyebrow raised. "You said I wasn't pretty enough for you."

He sighed his exasperation. "Are you really still on that?" He rolled his eyes at her, his grin retreating. "Listen. Sometimes I'm a fucking moron. Obviously, you're insanely beautiful. You'd have to be an idiot to not know that."

Liz blushed. She didn't know that…

"Elizabeth." He recalled her attention to him, and looked at her with perfect seriousness. "I have long considered you the most amazing girl I know. Even when you're smacking me in the face with beads. I was just being defensive—I know you know what that is."

Liz grinned. "I'm familiar with the concept." She held up her thumb and pointer finger with a small space between. "Just a little bit."

He grinned back and maintained the sarcasm, "Oh yes. Very little bit."

She nudged him and laughed. "Shut up." A moment passed, but just a short one before she said in all earnestness, "I have feelings for you, too."

"Still of the repressed variety?" he asked, still grinning.

She ducked her head in shame at her drunken ramblings. "They're not repressed if I'm telling you about them."

"Good. Glad we got that part out of the way." He leaned in with a smile and pressed his lips softly against hers in a way that felt all too familiar for both involved parties. They could both feel the other smiling as their mouths opened and their tongues wrapped needily around the other's. It was a glorious kiss, the kind of kiss that melted three years off your life and made you hate yourself for not doing it earlier—and even more for not remembering the time you _had_ done it earlier. But who cared? They were at peace now that—

"It's cloudy! Drink!"

By the time the parade rolled, no one really cared much for catching coconuts. They had other means of luck.

Happy Mardi Gras, indeed.

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><p><em>So… Here's hoping you enjoyed this. It's just this short little tale. There is nothing more to it than what you have here before you, but still reviews are always wildly appreciated and would make <em>my_ Mardi Gras even better!_

_Let me know if you liked it and then I will like you! It's that simple!_

_Thanks guys. As always, you all rock._


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